AUSTIN >> Listening to the rhetoric in the race for the Texas House District 77 seat, one hears starkly different depictions of Rep. Marisa Marquez' record.

In Marquez' telling, she has a solid record of achieving results for her constituents. But her challenger, Lyda Ness-Garcia, paints Marquez as an ambitious sellout who is at the mercy of Republican donors.

REPORTER

Marty Schladen

The two will face each other in the March 4 Democratic Primary in what is one of the two most competitive races among the El Paso County legislative delegation. The other is the race for the District 76 seat — a three-way race.

Marquez, a five-year incumbent, raised $67,000 between July 1 and Dec. 31. Ness-Garcia raised about half that — still a respectable showing for a legislative challenger.

The district the women are vying to represent encompasses Downtown, the West Side up to Doniphan Drive and a strip of the Northeast side along Dyer Street up to Loop 375.

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As Marquez, 35, runs for her fourth term, she says she's accomplished major parts of the goals she set for herself when she challenged Paul Moreno in 2008. She said she wanted to improve government transparency, substantially improve living conditions on the border, and advance higher education in El Paso.

"Those are three things we ran against Mr. Moreno on," Marquez said in a phone interview last week. "Those are three things we made progress on."

As proof, she cited bills creating the county Ethics Commission, subjecting colonias to platting rules and building inspections, securing funding for the Texas Tech medical school and giving the University of Texas at El Paso access to the state's Competitive Enterprise Fund.

"I don't play games with people and I don't play games to advance my career," Marquez said.

Ness-Garcia, 42, did not seem to agree. From her experience in family law, she knows that Texas programs to help children and families are inadequate, she said.

She claimed that Marquez, by virtue of taking money from donors who also gave to Gov. Rick Perry and Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, has divided loyalties.

"I don't believe that Marisa represents the values of her district," Ness-Garcia said.

As evidence, she claimed that Marquez, a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, was not part Democratic efforts to restore funds for public education.

School funding was slashed by $5.4 billion in 2011. The budget that Perry ultimately signed restored $3.3 billion.

"She had no part in implementing that budget," Ness-Garcia said, claiming that in committee, Marquez voted for a version of the budget that included no new money for education.

Marquez flatly denied the allegation. She said all the Democrats on Appropriations entered the budget process last January demanding more for education.

"She's just trying to mislead," Marquez said of her opponent.

Ness-Garcia also attacked Marquez for voting against a budget amendment that would have eliminated the Texas Enterprise Fund – a system of business incentives that Perry has been accused of using to benefit political supporters.

Marquez said she agrees the fund needs to be reformed, but she does not think it should be scrapped because it's helped El Paso.

She pointed to a December 2012 announcement that the payroll-processing firm ADT planned to spend $22 million in El Paso and hire 585. The enterprise fund put up $2.4 million to help seal the deal.

Also, had the amendment succeeded, it could have crashed the state's entire, $200 billion budget deal. It was one of more than 100 amendments that had been pre-filed and one of scores that came to the House floor only to be shot down the day the House passed the budget.

Repeatedly, Rep. Sylvester Turner, a liberal Democrat who is a vice chairman of Appropriations, told colleagues that even when he agreed with the content of budget amendments, he'd vote to kill them to protect what he considered gains in the overall budget, such as $3.3 billion more for education.

The budget was the product of a bipartisan agreement, Turner explained, and the amendments threatened to upset the deal.

Turner made the successful motion to kill the amendment that would have scrapped the enterprise fund.

Marquez agreed with Turner.

"That budget took care of El Paso," she said.

Ness-Garcia wants to position herself as the true progressive in the race; one who will work for women, children and the poor. In an attempt to contrast herself with Marquez, she provided the Times with a spreadsheet that says Marquez has received $422,000 in her political career from contributors who also have given to Perry and Abbott.

Ness-Garcia questioned how Marquez could be progressive after taking so much money from people who aren't.

"I'm not going to sacrifice my values for my political career," Ness-Garcia said.

Marquez denied that contributors sway her votes in the Legislature – and she rejected Ness-Garcia's effort to paint her as a quasi-Republican.

"First of all, I don't believe it's true," she said of Ness-Garcia's claim that Marquez and Perry share so many donors. "Secondly, I'm for Wendy Davis" the Democratic state senator who is running for governor against Abbott.

"Anybody who gives to me knows what they're going to get – a legislator who puts El Paso first and who has a proven record," Marquez said.

Ness-Garcia received 74 percent of her campaign funds - $25,000 – from a single donor, the Texas Association of Consumer Lawyers Political Action Committee.

It was created by Houston attorney Steve Mostyn, who along with his wife, Amber, are heavy contributors to Democrats. It is intended to fight limits to lawsuits in Texas.

Ness-Garcia was asked, since she received so much from a single source, if she would be captive to it.

"Goodness no," she said, later adding that her donors are compatible with her ideology.

"All of my donors are progressive and Democrat," she said.

Ness-Garcia also criticized Marquez for allowing complimentary statements she made about Republican Rep. Dee Margo to be used a campaign mailing in his unsuccessful run to retain the Dist. 78 seat in 2012.

Marquez said she didn't make a statement against Democrat Joe Moody, who beat Margo after losing to him in 2010.

"I said something nice about a colleague," she said. "This is not the first time this has happened in El Paso. It was an honest depiction of my working relationship with a colleague."